Nevermore
by Skylark Evanson
Summary: "...the beast, the creature, the monster..."
1. Ben

**A/N: This hit me. Mostly because I liked the title. So here goes another little either two-shot or three-shot of mine. If I can come up with something for Gwen, it'll be a three-shot. For now, it's just the guys.**

**Disclaimer: I don't own Ben 10. Ben's POV.**

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**Nevermore**

Cold sweat coated my skin as I bolted upright in bed, feeling a nightmare clinging onto my mind, not wanting me to forget the fear and pain it wrought. My heart was pounding a thousand times a second, racing at the speed of light within my chest; I could feel it beating against my ribcage, almost threatening to break one of the bones. Or at least it felt like it.

I tried to focus on the reality that was slowly building up around me again. I was seeing shadows dance across my room, the spotlight that was created by the silver moon chasing them off the stage of my room. I could see my computer taking form in the darkness as my eyes adjusted and I could make out the faint shapes of my other pieces of furniture. I could see my dresser and my little lamp and my tv. My closet doors were just black panels across the wall without a proper light on.

My head was throbbing slightly and I was trying to slow my breathing, in and out. In and out. My heart still thundered and my brain was beginning to build a dull ache in the back of my skull.

That was a bad nightmare. I'd had it bad before, but that was easily one of the worst I'd had in the longest time. Just so vivid and so twisted. The way the images rolled through his mind made it all feel like a long 3D movie that wouldn't end fast enough. And when it did end, it ended with a bang. And not the kind most people would want.

I ran one hand through my hair and kicked the blankets off my body. I was sweating and I felt like I was going to be sick at any moment. It was so horrible. So so horrible... I tried to wipe the perspiration off my sticky skin. It had to be one of the worst nightmares I'd had in my entire life.

I'd had almost the same one a thousand times before. It wasn't anything new. The only thing that made this one worse was that it was darker. More haunted. It was like something was screaming out to me and I was just missing it. And I'd had the same dream topic since I was younger, but this one was raw. It was all-consuming. It had grabbed me and sucked my hand like a vengeful hand.

The way the skin ripped away to reveal a disgusting figure beneath it...

Kevin's monster form had plagued my nightmares again. I hadn't had a bad dream about him since I was about thirteen. Sometimes he randomly came into my head when I slept, but it was never the guy I called my best friend. It was always the beast, the creature, the monster I had met years ago. Never recent things. Always distant. Always far off memories that had scarred me forever.

It was hard to survive through the nightmares where his skin peeled away and the wings sliced right out of his back. It always came out of nowhere. He could be a child, innocent and young with those brown eyes and he would turn on me without hesitation. Wings would slice out of his back, only cutting through more skin and making me shudder. The way his body fell off like Gwen's did when she went full Anodite...

The whole ordeal was horrifying. It's like watching the strongest man in the world go down in a single blow. Or watching the greatest surfer fall victim to a wave. Someone you can think so highly of falling to such lows...

I put in a little more effort to regulate my breathing. My heart was still pumping harder than I thought physically possible, but I couldn't get it to settle down from the unrest. I put a hand on my chest, feeling my ribcage rising and falling as I drank in air through my dry mouth.

Kevin was only a victim and I knew that, but I knew how he was capable of control. I watched him spare Gwen more than once and I was glad he was able to keep some of his human emotions in that mangled body.

This nightmare had him pinning me against a wall, crystal hand threatening to smash my chest in. He was only a kid in that mutated form and I was giving him the benefit of the doubt on that. But when he formed the crystals of his Diamondhead arm into a sharp, fine blade and pressed the weapon against my throat, I lost a little faith in him.

Usually, my nightmares were chases and name calling and the occasional cliff for me to get pushed off of, but this one had him slitting throat and laughing as the crimson blood ran down my neck, staining my skin scarlet. He was laughing. Demonically. He laughed as I struggled and tried to make an escape, but he had me by the waist in one hand and the other was nearly finished in severing my head from the rest of my body. And he just kept laughing and laughing like my death was the funniest thing in the world.

I felt like my heart was going to break a rib or something until I managed to calm my breathing down to at least normal levels. I had almost been hyperventilating before. And I wiped the beads of sweat from my forehead as I looked at the moonlight washed floor of my bedroom and I couldn't help but be scared that maybe that insanity would again jump into our team and maybe we'd lose Kevin for good this time.

He was my best friend, the only brother I could or would ever ask for. I didn't want to lose him. And so I made a pact with myself that I'd do anything to stop him from having to go through that again just to save the universe. He didn't deserve that with every bad guy that came up. I wouldn't let him fall victim to himself. Not again. Nevermore.

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**A/N: Short, but I like this part. Next will be up shortly.**

**~Sky**


	2. Gwen

**A/N: So I came up with a Gwen part for this. The Kevin part will be up soon. Wow, this is kind of addictive. I like this story just because it's such a collaboration.**

**Disclaimer: I do not own Ben 10.**

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_Nevermore_

_Nevermore_

_Nevermore will I be afraid of losing him  
__Nevermore will I see him in pain  
__Nevermore will I allow him to risk his life  
__Nevermore will I fear for him  
__Nevermore will I be afraid of him  
__Nevermore will I watch him lose himself  
__Nevermore will I let him put himself in danger  
__Nevermore will I see a monster beyond that skin  
__Nevermore will I allow his accursed past catch up to him  
__Nevermore will I drown in his misery  
__Nevermore will I let him embrace the darkness_

_Nevermore will Kevin fear death  
__Nevermore will Kevin make me cry  
__Nevermore will Kevin make me have to kill him  
__Nevermore will Kevin give into his inner demons  
__Nevermore will Kevin lose himself in the past  
__Nevermore will Kevin take on that monstrous body  
__Nevermore will Kevin be someone that strikes fear into hearts  
__Nevermore will Kevin be someone to look down upon  
__Nevermore will Kevin be someone that I am ashamed to be seen with  
__Nevermore will Kevin fear death  
__Nevermore will Kevin fall_

_Nevermore_

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A/N: I actually did some art to this and that's why I had to update. Next chapter will be up soon! Review please!

**~Sky**


	3. Kevin

**A/N: Final chapter. Came out shorter than I wanted, but whatever. It gets my point across. Kevin's POV.**

**Disclaimer: I own nothing.**

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_Nevermore_

I knew I heard that book drop somewhere by the trashcan in my room. I had heard it drop with a little clang of metal on the end. I had already determined that whatever fell (just assuming it was a book) wasn't near my weights, and my tools were on the opposite side of the room from where the sound had come. So I was slinking around my bedroom in the dark on my hands and knees trying to find what had fallen and woken me from an already restless slumber at three in the morning.

I was too tired and lazy to turn a light on; I didn't want to anyways because it would've woken me up too much to the point where I wouldn't have been able to sleep again. At three in the morning, I was fumbling around in the dark on the floor to try and find what had fallen.

The only light I could see by were traces of pure white moonlight that trickled in through my closed blinds that usually kept out any specks of the silver orb's glow. Tonight, I had clearly failed when I was closing my blinds. I could see just a little bit in front of me, just enough to see when I was going to run into my desk.

I still ran into it, jumbling and jangling all the trash I kept on top of it: books, papers, files, work. All my current projects were sprawled out on my desk. That was why I was so intent on getting the book now instead of in the morning. I didn't want to forget about it.

After ramming my head into the desk, I looked up to see a mirror staring back at me, my haunted dark eyes watching me like a zombie come back from the dead. At first, all I saw was movement, and I had to take a few paces back, afraid that someone else was in my room. Then I remembered that I had dropped that mirror months ago and hadn't remembered to pick it back up again from where it had fallen beneath my desk. So I crawled a little closer again.

The dark doesn't only plays mind games. It can make you see the Boogie Man and every vampire from Edward Cullen to Dracula. It plays games with kids, but I've always been a victim to the shadows of night. It almost always scares me when certain shadows rise to certain heights or take on certain forms.

Shadows stretched across my face as I stared at myself in the mirror. I looked haunted, dark, vicious, brutal. And scared. I looked absolutely horrified of myself. Terrified, even. The shadows were hanging under my eyes and the moon's glow caught on the longer strands of my hair; the shadows of my ebony locks looked like the fangs that I had once upon a time...

I shook my head, stripping my mind of that thought. Not again. But I looked closer and saw a demonic gleam in those eyes... Those hateful eyes... I could only see fear and hate in myself as I stared into my reflection. Fear of myself and hate being thrown in the same direction. But I wanted to forget all that. That was my aim: to forget.

That monster, that creature, that beast... That was a thing of the past. I didn't believe in that monster anymore. The shadows could play with my mind all they wanted, but part of me was now directed towards the good in life. Now I could see the joy. I could read how happy people were. I wasn't just a mindless, soulless, heartless being anymore. I was capable of other things. I wasn't a brutal killer. Not anymore. I wasn't a monster.

I quietly grabbed my book and stuck it back on top of my desk where it had fallen from. And then, before I crawled back up into bed, I took one last look at myself in the mirror.

The pallid color of my skin glowed in the silver of the moon's tendril-like beams that kissed the earth. I wouldn't ever really look like this, hair shadowing across my face like fangs and dark eyes only filled with hatred and fear. I never really looked like this. Only in the darkness of the shadows. I would never let anyone see me like that ever again.

I had made a promise to myself that I wouldn't be a monster anymore. I made a pact that I'd be perfect from now on, or at least as close as a guy could get. I was struggling with some things, but I was only doing the best I could.

As I managed to get back up into my bed and beneath my blankets and put my head back onto my pillow, I promised myself that I wouldn't turn into that monster again. Not just the beast, the creature, the monster that had possessed my life twice now, but the criminal that I had a tendency to revert to. I pulled the covers up tight against my neck, shutting out the cold. That monster wouldn't rear its ugly face ever again. Nevermore would anyone see the darker sides of me. Nevermore.

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**A/N: Fin. Please review.**

**~Sky**


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